Affordable and sustainable facilities for companies

Andreas Persson and Daniel Holmberg have looked into how to achieve more affordable and sustainable industrial facilities for small- and medium-sized companies in Karlskrona. Kruthusen Företagsfastigheter AB was the project owner.

Project prompt

The rent per square meter and year of an old facility is approximately 500-550 SEK, for newly built facilities with today’s building methods the price is in excess of 1000 SEK/m2. This makes these new facilities less attractive if not unaffordable for most companies. To reduce the rent Kruthusen Företagsfastigheter AB wants to explore different methods.

Solution – Flexible facilities

A new compact building with shared common areas has been created. The focus has been not only on the tenants but also on their customers. Therefore, more efficient parking and customer reception has been improved. The meeting itself with the customer has also been improved by adding a conference room. The materials chosen for the building have been selected by sustainability- and performance factor.

Today big costs are connected with companies’ changing facilities which often require reconstruction or similar. Some needs extra bathrooms, some needs kitchen and some does not need any of it. Therefore, to save a lot of money on reconstruction a common area will be built where there will be a dressing room with showers, WC and a shared kitchen.

There are many different ways to save energy which also reduces costs. Research has been made to see if there are other alternatives to heat the building. However, district heating is available in the area where the new facility will be built which is a sustainable choice and therefore was selected. Heat losses for the new building were calculated to see if it is enough to target operational costs to be able to secure a low rent. The result was that a high amount of the heat losses can be reduced but it is not alone enough to allow affordable rents. The total cost of the building could not be estimated by us, which is the reason why other measures like common areas cannot be proven to lower the rent to the targeted value. If the concept is affordable will be shown when the concept is sent to a construction company for cost estimation.

The final building will include a common area in the middle at the entrance and 10 rooms for renting that will be 8×13 meters. To make it easier for the customers a parking lot will be built in front of the building. On the back side every company will have an area, for trucks and other work-related vehicles. Also a spot for containers will be included for extra storage for each renting company.

In the Extreme PSS Innovation course, students from BTH’s masters programmes in Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Management and Engineering, and Sustainable Product-Service System Innovation (MSPI) are given challenges from real industrial companies to solve. The course is a central part of BTH’s mantra “In Real Life”.

Extreme PSS Innovation 2017/18 completed
In the Extreme PSS Innovation course, students from BTH's masters programmes in Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Management and Engineering, and Sustainable Product-Service System Innovation (MSPI) are given challenges from real industrial companies to solve. The course is a central part of BTH's mantra "In Real Life".